Indian origin couple Salim Abdool Karim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim were honoured with US Award for HIV-AIDS Research by the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) in Baltimore, US for their valuable contribution for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Both have been doing special research for searching innovative ways that could help prevention of HIV among women.

Salim is a professor of Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Along with that Salim is:

Director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban as well as Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

About Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim: Quarraisha is well known for her research work in South Africa to understand the evolving HIV epidemic, factors responsible for the spread of the HIV infection in adolescent girls and sustainable strategies to introduce antiretroviral therapy in resource-constrained settings.

Research for development of microbicides for HIV prevention for over 20 years is also done by Salim Abdool Karim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim. The first proved effective drug named as CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel for the prevention of sexually transmitted HIV infection and herpes simplex virus type 2 in women was also discovered by the couple.